There's this fellow I used to live with, been friends with, part of the Goth community and the Renfaire Community.

He is, unfortunately a Tea Party member

However his Facebook post yesterday was so full of cognitive dissonance I couldn't even reply to it. It was how the Tea party had fought so hard to prevent the government shutdown.

AAAUUNNNNGNGGHGHGHGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

The Tea Party provoked the government shut down by buying into the "austerity means more revenue" argument, and then insisted that it had to be their way or no way. Given how well shutting the government down went for the Republicans last time, I expect this will ultimately lead down the same path.

First of all, I would hate being a righteous prick. My talents are few as it is. I'd hate that to be the only thing I was good at.

Two, I think these guys are hoping that when all of this comes back to bite them in the ass, that they aren't there. Wherever that is. Though they still want to be in congress. And since they get to draw the district lines, they probably will be.

When everything is wrong, its hard to come up with a strategy to fix things. There is no place to start.

Logged

It isn't true that non-existent gods can't do anything. For instance, they were able to make me into an atheist.

The Tea Party provoked the government shut down by buying into the "austerity means more revenue" argument, and then insisted that it had to be their way or no way. Given how well shutting the government down went for the Republicans last time, I expect this will ultimately lead down the same path.

First of all, I would hate being a righteous prick. My talents are few as it is. I'd hate that to be the only thing I was good at.

Two, I think these guys are hoping that when all of this comes back to bite them in the ass, that they aren't there. Wherever that is. Though they still want to be in congress. And since they get to draw the district lines, they probably will be.

When everything is wrong, its hard to come up with a strategy to fix things. There is no place to start.

Redrawing district lines doesn't always work in one's favor, such as in my state when they redrew lines it got Alan Grayson (far-left) back in the house.

No. There is no far-left in the US anymore. There is center-left. But there is no far-left. Far-left would be advocating things like single payer health insurance, government sponsored day care, paying women salaries for being mothers, actual gun control, actual socialism, etc. All that stuff Europe and Scandanavia have. None of which is seriously considered here, and only mentioned as amazing curiosities.

In case you can't watch the video, it's Maddow showing a compilation of Republicans and TeaPublicans campaigning on the shutdown itself, frequently paired with significant applause from their attendees. She shows several of them coming out of the pre shutdown meeting jubilant and saying they got the shutdown they wanted.

This paired with the recent rhetoric coming out of Washington, and from various Republican and TeaPublicans leads me to agree with it.

Here is a HuffingtonPost article about them discussing the messaging of this mess rather than the mess itself.

My own observation is that we're watching the Overton Window in play at the moment.

In *comparison* this makes your unreasonable demands look acceptable.This is what they're doing. It's what they've been doing for a long time.

It's been driving the entire political discourse to the right, and is the perfect technique to use on someone like President Obama, who's entire doctrine consists of a stated desire for people to work out their differences through compromise. The problem is, when one party is reasonable and the other is not, the one that isn't drives the conversation in their direction.

The only real way to deal with this tactic is through hardball politics. "You want to negotiate, here how about National Health are, kill they Keystone, up taxes on the 1% by a lot, change the capital gains structure, and fully paid childcare and pre-school." Essentially using the same tactic.

What the Democratic party is doing at the moment is a half measure, it's working at the moment because it's stupidly obvious this is the Republican's fault. The Republicans are pushing back, and pushing hard on that message. They're trying to make their new 'merely unreasonable' demands look better by comparison to the original gift package of Romney's presidential promise package that they demanded on the eve of the shutdown.

Logged

Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

On Wednesday afternoon at the Word War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) confronted a female U.S. Park Service Ranger as she was preventing non-veteran tourists from entering the temporarily-closed park due to this week’s government shutdown.

After the incident, Vice President Joe Biden called the Park Ranger to tell her he was proud of her. Neugebauer's congressional website "suddenly" only allows input from people in his district. It would be nice if 30 million Americans suddenly live in Snyder, Texas. I now do.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I like Pierce’s prose in this one. http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Endless_VictimhoodPlus, he’s spot on. Repub persecution complex is strongly tied to xian persecution complex and probably derives from the same place. You see, jesus H and the apostles were persecuted. And jesus H also said xians would be persecuted, hated and spat on, etc. As a result, many modern xians actually *want* this kind of abuse, because it validates their stupid beliefs and makes them feel like they’re “doing it right”. Where they go wrong is finding offense and oppression in the most preposterous places. “you are being intolerant of my intolerance! Oppressor!” Makes them sound like a bunch of whiney crybabies, which they are.